Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is an MMORPG for the PC which is made by Mythic Entertainment. It's relatively new to the MMO scene though, as it's now approaching its first birthday.
Gaming Union caught up with Roland Cox, International Associate Producer, and Mark Davis, Associate Producer, at GamesCom 2009 to talk about the future of Warhammer Online.
Gaming Union: The Land of the Dead was your latest expansion, and that came out a couple of months ago. How's that been doing?
Mark Davis: It's been going really well, it was an expansion but we gave it away for free. We felt it was right for the game, what the game needed. So rather than charging for it we gave it to players for free.
GU: You also released a new patch recently for that, has the reception for that been good?
Roland Cox: 130B
MD: Yeah
RC: That included some support for it [Land of the Dead]. One of the things we do with WAR (Warhammer Online) is make sure we're listening to our customers, and they had a lot of observations about how area of effects and ground control were working in the game. Originally we were trying to put these changes in with the Land of the Dead expansion, but we wanted them to be polished. After we had done some public testing, and then some more testing, we were happy with the outcome and introduced them as the recent patch. We were experiencing problems with the game, for example, certain classes were being overpowered in RvR situtions and the new changes have gone down exceedingly well with the fans. They didn't want to wait, but they're pleased with the results.
The game is in a very strong phase at the moment, and we're about to go into a new phase of looking into areas that customers aren't particularly happy with at the moment, namely the Tier IV end game. We have a lot of changes slated for that based on a lot of accumulated data based on what people have been saying about their end game experience.
GU: So in terms of what's next, will it be more work on this expansion, or looking towards a future expansion?
RC: So, I think the message we have at the moment is that we won't be adding lots of new content to the game. We actually have a very large game, with lots of things to do and where we are at the moment is making sure it's played in the way people want to play it. That it's the experience we want them to have, and they want to have.
With regards to Tier IV, we're doing a lot of things like changing the end fights. We'll be removing a lot of PvE aspects and making it focus on RvR. That's what people like about our game, fighting against other people, and the PvE was one of the main criticisms. We've address that, so now the PvE elements have been completely swamped out so now they're effectively RvR scenarios. People go in and get control by killing other players. This is a big change, but so is allowing defenders to come in at any stage. This means there are plenty of people to kill, which is what people like in our game. By making restrictions, we were effectively shooting ourselves in the foot, so focusing on the end game is making it much more exciting to play.
We are also removing the gated fortress which currently stands in the way of the capital city. We wanted to show people the city, because it's great and fighting in it's great. We wanted to show it off, so we're removing the fortresses completely, which should make players happy as they hated them. We were effectively making it counter-intuitive as to how we wanted people to play, so we've come to realise that and are addressing it.
GU: How are you trying to get new players in?
RC: That's a good question. we actually have a new player initiative we are working on. One of the things with all MMOs is that they have barriers to entry that are quite hard. They are probably the hardest and most complicated games to play. First person shooters are super easy, my mum could probably play them. She wouldn't be any good, but she could still sit down and try to shoot stuff. MMOs have a degree of sophistication to them that is very difficult, even for casual gamers. What we're doing is trying to make it easy for people to play. We're looking at all sorts of things, like a lighter client that's easier to download. We're also streamlining the character selection screen so people can get in as quickly as possible.
Our starter areas are really great, but we're looking to add what Mark calls 'Awesomesauce'. We want to add a level of playability and ease of access to them, so we're looking at all sorts of introductory quests as well as looking at our help system. We're also looking introducing the concepts of RvR in the first Tier of the game. The introductory experience is getting more sophisticated and easy to understand. Most people play a character a couple of times before they decide they know which one they want to use. We think that if you can hook them for 3-4 hours in their first session that we've got them. If not, then they will likely quit.
GU: The game has been out for a year now, what's it been like?
RC: It's been mad! (laughs). The year before launch and the year after launch have been mad, but we are very happy with the way the game is. I think that with The Land of the Dead, The Hunter's Veil, the improvements we're making to Tier IV and the new stuff that it's probably the best stuff we've ever done. We've addressed a lot of the problems with the game, and now we've concentrating on giving people what they want. That's a good place to be, because it means you're going to be around it year to come.
Gabe Amatangelo was the lead designer on Land of the Death and he was very happy with what he pushed his team to do. The players have come back and said they really like the cunning RvR aspects of laying traps for your opponents, and how the actual design is pleasing to play. That's come out of a year of what works in Warhammer, our experience drawing on things like Camelot, like Mark, who's been with us how long?
MD: 8 years now
RC: 8 years, and he's on the Camelot team. There's a lot of MMO experience in mythic and we're drawing on that all the time to kind of guide where we are doing. Experience is often better than history as they say.
GU: Speaking of which, where do you see the MMO Genre going, do you see it kind of continuing on the same trend?
RC: Online gaming. Hmm, that's an interesting question
GU: You've got Final Fantasy XIV ocming out, and they are just saying 'screw experience'
RC: I think in terms of approach [things will stay the same], but this genre is more about monetising. MMOs set a challenge for a lot of companies as they're really hard to make. They are probably the hardest type of computer game to make, because the development times are long. You just can't put 20 hours of content into an MMO.
If someone plays the game for 5 years, you have to put enough content in there to support them for 5 years. If you're making a first person shooter or driving game, your focus is on making sure it's a polished end product. Your time and investment is all up front and once the game is released that's it. With an MMO, you have all that up front time, and then you have the support time afterwards. The challenge for every MMO company is from a business point of view; how do you make that profitable. I think there has always been innovation in how people play, because if you're listening to your customers, and you make a great concept, you can put it into an MMO and that's what makes it exciting. You have real people, who can give you great feedback.
GU: MMOs are much more community driven than normal games
RC: Yea, exactly. That's what makes them exciting. The challenge for MMOs is that they cost a lot of money, and they are really hard to make. How many companies are going to survive the huge costs involved in making an MMO, and that's actually a more interesting question. A lot of people are looking at micro-transactions rather than subscriptions. That's always the really hard question though, what will people pay for a game.
GU: It's a pretty big issue at the moment
RC: It's a big issue for the entire software industry people paying for games, people paying for what they are playing.
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